Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Bobby's Got Questions...

In my attempt to do everything but the work in front of me, I figured I'd throw up a post to try and get the conversation going on VSL.

Question 1:Papa O'Shea and I were talking last night about Brett Hait's article in yesterday's City Paper on Kevin Stallings and the soon to be open job at Indiana. It is my contention that there aren't 10 jobs better than IU in America, and that there are only 5 that are definitively better. Those are: UNC, Duke, UCLA, Kansas, and Kentucky. This factors in tradition, strength of the program, etc...I would put Georgetown, Florida, and UConn on par with IU, but don't consider any of those jobs BETTER than IU. This all started because the Old Man things it would be a lateral move for Stallings. I disagree, what do you think?Question/Observation 2:If Tennessee beats Memphis on Saturday night they will more likely than not be ranked as the #1 team in America. That means, assuming Vanderbilt beats UGA Saturday afternoon (details to come on viewing across the VSL Nation later this week), the Commodores will put their undefeated home record on the line aganist the #1 team in America. The last time the Commodores played host to #1 was last February aganist Florida, and we all know how that turned out. I know I am getting out ahead of things given that Vanderbilt hasn't beaten Georgia, and Tennessee hasn't beaten Memphis yet. Still, the thought occured to me, and now it's occured to you.

Question/Observation 3:Why do people in the mainstream media love to dump on Vanderbilt? It seems that without fail, we continue to get dumped on. I agree that flying under the radar isn't a bad thing, but when professional broadcasters like Colin Cowherd (i.e. a poor man's Jim Rome) go on and say Vanderbilt is a team that is widely over-rated and likely to make a first round exit, I have to wonder what they are basing that on. How is that credible? Vanderbilt is 22-4 with losses at 4 pretty damn tough places to win. Their RPI is either 11 or 12 depending on the source, and ranked 16 or 20 depending on the poll. Yet, Lunardi and Stewart Mandel have us a 7 seed, and Cowherd (and others that I don't even know about) dump on us. What's up with that?

Stewart Mandel is the worst writer in sports. He is a "college football" writer, then with 3 weeks left in basketball season he comes out with "his" bracket. Which is a copy of everyone elses. The only good thing SI has to offer came out last month.

I normally hate Cowherd and everything he says but the only thing in his defense is that he bases his college basketball info on Vegas bookmakers who also say we are over-rated. Vegas always seems to get stuff like that right. I think if we finish up solid with road wins and decent showing in SEC tournament we will get more respect

"When I saw this film, I realized that Vanderbilt FB and BB are playing not only against opponents but also against the expectation that Vanderbilt will always be a doormat."

I know it sucks to get hosed by some jerkoff refs, but every single team in the history of college and professional sports has, at one point or another, been the victim (and the beneficiary) of home cookin'.

There are lots of crap sports writers/columnists out there, but you can't blame one team's "expectation of being a doormat" (I seem to remember a certain men's hoops team, also named Vanderbilt, that did quite well in the field of 64 last year) on a couple of classroom-athlete ESPN reporters.

(Remember when Joe Lunardi threw up his bracket for this year back in APRIL? The guy has as much credibility as OJ and everyone on VSL flips out when he has Vandy at a lower seed).

You've got a decent men's team this year that's going to be in the tourney - don't get bent out of shape over a couple of opinions. If Vandy is as good as you all claim, they'll finish the season strong and advance in the tourney.

Football might be a little different, but maybe if you weren't getting your ass handed to you by Wake Forest, the "media" wouldn't have such a low expectation.

The fact of the matter is Vandy doesn't have a key win or a win over a ranked team. Last year we had some bad losses, but we were piling up victories against ranked teams. I say this team beats UT on Tuesday and finally gets legit in the rankings. I still see us entering as either a 4 or 5 seed in the tourney.

I honestly think the media is waiting for Vandy to put up a signature win before they take us too seriously. Not losing to bad teams doesn't make you one of the top 10-15 teams in the country. I really hope we get a chance at a #1 ranked UT team.

With regards to Stallings, I think he has a chance to really build something at Vanderbilt and you can already see it starting to build with back-to-back tourney appearances on the way. deep runs can quickly improve your reputation. I think IU is a very lucative job, but we think the world of him for getting us to sweet sixteen and at IU he would be under criticism if they weren't there EVERY year. I hope he stays because our program runs really well under his system and it meshes well with memorial madness.

On a side note, would anyone else like to see us establish a rivalry game with Duke? I think they are regularly over-rated and I'd love to see a midseason clash b/w the similar universities. (good academics, crappy football teams, good basketball traditions)